Thursday, April 26, 2012

I would have provided you an update a couple of days ago, but I realized that I misplaced the left side of Julie's glasses, so I had to rip it all out. Now that I've got it half replaced, I can show you a picture!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Two of my friends and I have birthdays in March, so we often have one joint party to celebrate. This year we didn't do a fancy theme, but just went with a St. Patrick's Day party as it was actually on St. Patrick's Day, and because Cathy & Matt still had the decorations from the last time we did that. I wanted to make a fun, non-fussy cake for the event. Instead, I made this.

Taste the rainbow.

I got the basic how to here. You can use a double batch any white cake recipe you like, but I just started with a two boxes of white cake mix because that's how I roll. If you've done a layer cake before, this is a pretty easy dessert, but it requires a fair amount of counter space, and either multiple pans and ovens or lots of patience.

The icing is just the basic Wilton recipe with half of the vanilla extract swapped out for almond. The filling is white chocolate almond. This cake was so sweet your teeth fell out just looking at it. If I ever do it again, I will probably use lemon curd as a filling to add a little tart to the sweet.

Two tools that facilitate making this cake (and any other cake) are a cake lifter and a cake leveler. It's certainly possible to make this cake without them, but for super-even layers and ease of handling, they're well worth the price. Also the cake lifter works well for pizza, too.

Here are some progress pics...

Cake batter, separated into individual colors

Cooled cakes, stored in the oven so the cats didn't eat them

Torted and stacked cake

A crumb coat was necessary to hide the colors

Finished cake. I wanted it to look as bland as possible.

Prepare to go into sugar shock from a slice this size.

And that's how you make a cake that will elicit OOOOHS and AAAHS from your unsuspecting guests. Try it, won't you?

Monday, April 16, 2012

When last we spoke 10 days ago, Young Neil wasn't much more than a splotch of hair, some eyes, and an outline of a Nintendo DS. Today, he's a (mostly) full person with Julie's hair starting to take form next to him!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

I've been slacking on being "crafty" with my working and all, so with my most recent trip back the coast, I decided I'd get geared up and get my painting on!!

I like buying blank/unfinished paper mache and I can go to town and get my creativity on. I made these for two amazing people. :)

You start with a blank ornament. Michael's is pretty much THE place to go around here for me to find any sort of craft supplies. They come in a few different shapes, but these were just good ol' circles.

A few coats of paint, red in this case, then it'll look like:

*this isn't MINE, just a pic I found, but you get the idea.*

Then found a font that was suitable for the lettering I needed, printed it off onto regular paper, fit it on top of the ornament after a few coats of paint and just traced over the letters to give an impression that I could use as an outline. I did this with some other details on the other side and proceeded to paint using the outlines as a guide.

I made these for the creators of the Sarcastic Voyage Podcast, Aalgar and Matt. So I took their logo and recreated it!

Front:

Both have the same frontside. The edge running around the circle is a charcoal color.

Back:

I duplicated the same process for the letters with the radio tower to personalize them. Matt's has his name in white.

I'm really happy with how they turned out as it was just an idea I had and I wondered if it was going to work. Even better, I got to hand deliver them to the guys at Emerald City Comic Con earlier this month. Getting to see the looks on their faces just made me feel so much better about my hard work. :)

*Big thanks to Aal for taking pictures of his so I could make this post! \m/ *

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

So you have a costume ball coming up, and want to make a fabulous mask to wear? Here's how to make one!

First, procure a plain mask. Such as this.

Supplies!

If you want your mask to last a long time, your first step is to paint it with a primer made for plastic. If you are impatient like me, you can just do a few coats of acrylic paint in your base color. If you are making a lighter color mask, you will want to start with a white plastic mask. I wanted mine to be dark brown, so I started with a black mask.

Next, paint on any design you want for your mask. In this case I was trying to duplicate the pattern in the dress I was going to wear.

Swirly.

After you get your design done, give it one or two coats of clear acrylic. This is supposed to be matte acrylic, but it looks a little glossy anyway. The gloss coat I have would have been even shinier, though. Decide what works best for the look you're going for.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Ok, it's been a couple of weeks without an update, but I blame that mostly on Emerald City Comic-Con and the NCAA basketball tournament. I had a couple of questions from reader Emma'sStitches on my last post, so let's get to those!

1) Emma was hoping to see a full progress picture soon. I'm only doing full shots on every tenth update, so the next one will be in 6 updates!

2) Emma is planning on undertaking the Scott Pilgrim project as well & asked if I plan on stitching in the white stitches for the characters' eyes and so forth. I'm not. There's a lot to do here and I'm lazy. Since I'm using white cloth for the project, it seems like extra effort that doesn't mean anything in the long run.